10 ms·

Ehh ... it needs to be eliminated? [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_extension

mirimir 9y ago
The Great Common Task :) > Fedorov stated that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov
bamboozled 9y ago
Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals.
- fizixer 9y ago
  > Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? I would say we're going to need all the human ingenuity and hard work to tackle the issues we're facing. Yes, these are very difficult problems, but the reward would be well worth the effort! > I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals. I'm all for that technology to be developed in parallel.
  - bamboozled 9y ago
    Ingenuity is one part of it, large scale behavioural and societal changes are what's really in-order though, the less individualistic view. Rich countries sharing the wealth with the poor, investing your money in banks which don't fund exploitative and harmful projects, changing how you travel etc. This is the work that also has to be done by each of us. We always seem to lean on developing new technology to solve our problems and technological development is wonderfully successful, it's a good thing, a fine thing, but we don't use it very well. For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It's all common sense though really.
    - fizixer 9y ago
      It's funny I seem to have expressed my thoughts on this very recently [1]. Also a FAQ that you might be interested in [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 [2] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
    - Arizhel 9y ago
      >For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It can't be done really. We've been trying to for decades, but famine isn't caused by a lack of resources, it's caused by political problems. Western nations have been sending food and supplies to impoverished African countries for ages, and it just gets stolen by their leaders and doesn't make it to the people who need it. The only way to fix this is to militarily invade and occupy these countries so we can run them properly, but we can't do that because it's imperialistic. The fundamental problem as I see it is that there's a huge amount of undiagnosed sociopathy in human societies, and most of them are run by people with at least some degree of sociopathy, because they're uniquely skilled at working their way into those positions. The only way I see to fix this is to genetically engineer humans to remove this problem and make them more empathetic. This fix would then have to be forced on everyone somehow, perhaps with a virus.
  - sametmax 9y ago
    Ingenuity MAY solve it in the FUTURE. It's a potential. Limiting our consumption WILL solve it NOW. It's a certainty. We have the power to do it. Just not the will. We loves our steaks and cars.
- MrQuincle 9y ago
  If resources are limited and human brains can live forever in an artificial substrate, I see three possible futures: 1) Send of these brains to other planets. 2) Time-sharing bodies. 3) Destruction of old brains. I would not be surprised if the last option will be considered the most inhumane.
- flukus 9y ago
  On the other hand, knowing that you will live to see the effects of climate change might be a great motivator to solve the problem, especially if it has the potential to cut short your infinite life. Eternal life may make us incredibly risk averse. > It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. How much of the population growth is caused by our mortality and the desire to "live" forever? A lot of it was almost certainly because children were the retirement plan before the aged pension became a thing.
semi-extrinsic 9y ago
I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. Imagine a world with essentially no children. No generation of young adults growing up and spurring change in the world. I think it would not just take away a crucial part of the human experience, but our entire economic system would collapse. There's just too much of it tied into the constant churn of people. (Of course, you might imagine indefinite life extension springing into existence only after we've started rapid colonisation of space; a pipe dream if I ever saw one. Even then, Earth would still be holden to what I describe.) In two-three generations, most everyone alive in the countries where life extension was widely adopted would be old farts that didn't want to take up much further debt, with few new ideas and not much drive left in them. "Science advances one funeral at a time", as do many other fields key to human progress. Meanwhile, the countries too poor to see mass adoption of life extension would out-grow and out-innovate our collective asses faster than you can say "collapse of Western civilisation". So you'd live forever, but in increasing poverty (due the countries that produce most of the things you buy having much higher growth than yours) in a stagnant, crumbling society. If we were to invent indefinite life extension that was affordable beyond the 0.1%, I think it would be the ultimate tragedy of the commons.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  I know what you're saying, natural death from aging could be seen as a solution just as easily as it can be viewed as a problem. If anything we should get better at it, for example, educate people more about aging and talk more about death and the benefits of caring for yourself in your youth so to age well, it doesn't really have to be sad.
- fizixer 9y ago
  > I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. I'd say admitting an inability to understand something is a good first step towards making progress. Don't lose hope. Here's something to read in the meantime [1] [1] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
  - 9y ago
legulere 9y ago
It is kind of silly to talk about life extension, when we have cardiovascular diseases as the number 1 death cause which are around 90% preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease
- fizixer 9y ago
  You got it upside down. It's silly to "talk" (talk as in communication in the medical research community) about deaths due to preventable diseases, which should be left to social scientists, politicians, celebrities, advocacy groups etc. If science and medicine has given you a solution and you don't apply it in your life, it's your problem not of the scientific community.

mirimir 9y ago

The Great Common Task :) > Fedorov stated that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov

bamboozled 9y ago

Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals.

fizixer 9y ago
> Oh right, that's going to make fixing climate change nearly impossible isn't it? I would say we're going to need all the human ingenuity and hard work to tackle the issues we're facing. Yes, these are very difficult problems, but the reward would be well worth the effort! > I guess if your able to upload your consciousness into a computer or some other some Transhuman fantasy like that it would probably be a much better outcome for the natural world and everyone left in the realm of mortals. I'm all for that technology to be developed in parallel.
- bamboozled 9y ago
  Ingenuity is one part of it, large scale behavioural and societal changes are what's really in-order though, the less individualistic view. Rich countries sharing the wealth with the poor, investing your money in banks which don't fund exploitative and harmful projects, changing how you travel etc. This is the work that also has to be done by each of us. We always seem to lean on developing new technology to solve our problems and technological development is wonderfully successful, it's a good thing, a fine thing, but we don't use it very well. For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It's all common sense though really.
  - fizixer 9y ago
    It's funny I seem to have expressed my thoughts on this very recently [1]. Also a FAQ that you might be interested in [2]. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14205938 [2] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
  - Arizhel 9y ago
    >For example everyone on earth could be fed, but that's not how we operate. It can't be done really. We've been trying to for decades, but famine isn't caused by a lack of resources, it's caused by political problems. Western nations have been sending food and supplies to impoverished African countries for ages, and it just gets stolen by their leaders and doesn't make it to the people who need it. The only way to fix this is to militarily invade and occupy these countries so we can run them properly, but we can't do that because it's imperialistic. The fundamental problem as I see it is that there's a huge amount of undiagnosed sociopathy in human societies, and most of them are run by people with at least some degree of sociopathy, because they're uniquely skilled at working their way into those positions. The only way I see to fix this is to genetically engineer humans to remove this problem and make them more empathetic. This fix would then have to be forced on everyone somehow, perhaps with a virus.
- sametmax 9y ago
  Ingenuity MAY solve it in the FUTURE. It's a potential. Limiting our consumption WILL solve it NOW. It's a certainty. We have the power to do it. Just not the will. We loves our steaks and cars.
MrQuincle 9y ago
If resources are limited and human brains can live forever in an artificial substrate, I see three possible futures: 1) Send of these brains to other planets. 2) Time-sharing bodies. 3) Destruction of old brains. I would not be surprised if the last option will be considered the most inhumane.
flukus 9y ago
On the other hand, knowing that you will live to see the effects of climate change might be a great motivator to solve the problem, especially if it has the potential to cut short your infinite life. Eternal life may make us incredibly risk averse. > It would make the population boom of the last century and associated wide-spread destruction of the natural environment look like a picnic. How much of the population growth is caused by our mortality and the desire to "live" forever? A lot of it was almost certainly because children were the retirement plan before the aged pension became a thing.

semi-extrinsic 9y ago

I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. Imagine a world with essentially no children. No generation of young adults growing up and spurring change in the world. I think it would not just take away a crucial part of the human experience, but our entire economic system would collapse. There's just too much of it tied into the constant churn of people. (Of course, you might imagine indefinite life extension springing into existence only after we've started rapid colonisation of space; a pipe dream if I ever saw one. Even then, Earth would still be holden to what I describe.) In two-three generations, most everyone alive in the countries where life extension was widely adopted would be old farts that didn't want to take up much further debt, with few new ideas and not much drive left in them. "Science advances one funeral at a time", as do many other fields key to human progress. Meanwhile, the countries too poor to see mass adoption of life extension would out-grow and out-innovate our collective asses faster than you can say "collapse of Western civilisation". So you'd live forever, but in increasing poverty (due the countries that produce most of the things you buy having much higher growth than yours) in a stagnant, crumbling society. If we were to invent indefinite life extension that was affordable beyond the 0.1%, I think it would be the ultimate tragedy of the commons.

bamboozled 9y ago
I know what you're saying, natural death from aging could be seen as a solution just as easily as it can be viewed as a problem. If anything we should get better at it, for example, educate people more about aging and talk more about death and the benefits of caring for yourself in your youth so to age well, it doesn't really have to be sad.
fizixer 9y ago
> I never understood the people who argue for indefinite life extension. I'd say admitting an inability to understand something is a good first step towards making progress. Don't lose hope. Here's something to read in the meantime [1] [1] https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/ https://carcinisation.com/2014/07/13/an-anti-deathist-f-a-q/
- 9y ago

legulere 9y ago

It is kind of silly to talk about life extension, when we have cardiovascular diseases as the number 1 death cause which are around 90% preventable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease

fizixer 9y ago
You got it upside down. It's silly to "talk" (talk as in communication in the medical research community) about deaths due to preventable diseases, which should be left to social scientists, politicians, celebrities, advocacy groups etc. If science and medicine has given you a solution and you don't apply it in your life, it's your problem not of the scientific community.